Lectures
(Return to Teaching resources)
Don’t ignore the potential of lectures as an instructional device. While current trends often displace lectures in favor of discussion, in the right situations lectures can still be useful and effective.
However, after learning the benefits and situations relevant to lectures, consider what skills you are trying to teach and determine whether a lecture is the right format for instruction. Often, especially in English, the skill set doesn’t apply.
- Large amounts of rote knowledge in a short amount of time. When a lot of listed material needs to be memorized, or charts recorded for later use, lectures become an option.
- Conveys factual information from a sole authority figure. Lectures are often effective if you have a visiting person of some note, and you only care about that one person’s ideas.
- Reinforces the notion of a codified canon of requisite knowledge. This can be desired, such as presenting lists of what qualifies as harassment or plagiarism, or presenting factual knowledge.
- Tests reward good note-taking skills.
- Privileges auditory and visual learners over every other type. This is part of the reason why lectures are not helpful to many individuals.
- The average learner stops listening to an impersonal lecture after about 6 minutes. After this point, very little is preserved in memory.
- Often ignores aspects of learning that require association and application far more than rote memory.
- Reinforces the notion of a codified canon of requisite knowledge.
- Reinforces the lecturer as an unimpeachable source of information that cannot be challenged.
- Prepare, prepare, prepare! Know your:
- Audience
- Objectives
- Types of assessment that will be utilized for the information.
- Subject. Know your subject’s details and why it works that way.
- Logic. Know how you move from stage to stage and why.
- An Outline. Never lecture without some guide.
- Questions you might ask during the lecture.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help!
- Always ask for help from others in preparing your lecture. Other people generally have useful perspectives and insight, especially those who have already been in your shoes.
- Always ask for help from others in preparing your lecture. Other people generally have useful perspectives and insight, especially those who have already been in your shoes.
- Make the lecture personal for your audience.
- Apply the lecture to instances in their lives. Give examples they have or might run into.
- Apply the lecture to instances in their lives. Give examples they have or might run into.
- Use leads for new information
- Introduce new stages in your information with a lead into the information that helps establish a context for that information.
- Introduce new stages in your information with a lead into the information that helps establish a context for that information.
- Review over and over!
- Some students will process information to their memory slower than
others, always review information from previous sections at the
beginning and end, and often the middle of each stage of discussion.
- Some students will process information to their memory slower than
others, always review information from previous sections at the
beginning and end, and often the middle of each stage of discussion.
- Encourage students to use Cornell note-taking
- It is an effective note-taking method for many students, especially those who are not familiar with taking notes in lectures.
If you are not familiar with it, check it out here:
Cornell note-taking instructions.
- It is an effective note-taking method for many students, especially those who are not familiar with taking notes in lectures.
If you are not familiar with it, check it out here:
Cornell note-taking instructions.
- Language
- Possibly the most important aspect, language in a lecture seems to work best when it is formal and specific to the nth degree. Stay away from jargon, slang, and overly poetic “churchhillian” rhetoric laden with metaphors that will obscure your information. The goal of a lecture is less in presentation and more in listing the details clearly.